City on Garner grill
Inquiry to quiz officials, but unlikely Blaz or O’Neill
NYPD brass and any cops on the sidewalk when Eric Garner was killed in 2014 during a botched arrest in Staten Island should expect to testify at an upcoming judicial inquiry into how the city handled his death, a judge said Monday.
Nearly seven years to the day after an unarmed Garner, a Black husband and father, died at the hands of a white police officer applying a banned chokehold, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Erika Edwards indicated she wanted to hear from high-level law enforcement leaders who authorized, managed and made critical decisions in the internal investigation into Garner’s controversial death.
Edwards will issue a decision by Friday detailing what evidence she will permit and who she will let testify at the inquiry slated to start Oct. 25. Transcripts of the inquiry will be made public.
Likely off the hook are Mayor de Blasio and his then-police commissioner, James O’Neill, who were running the city and the NYPD when cops tried to arrest Garner for allegedly selling illegal cigarettes.
Edwards signaled she would not permit lawyers for the Garner camp to force de Blasio or O’Neill to answer questions on the stand.
“My feeling is, it does not include Mayor de Blasio,” Edwards said during a virtual hearing. “It probably does not include the actual commissioner but it would be the people tasked with the responsibilities — from sergeants, lieutenants on up.”
The inquest will examine the circumstances of Garner’s stop and arrest, the NYPD’s use of force, the medical care provided to him at the scene, leaks to the media about the Staten Island man’s past brushes with the legal system and more.
The hearing might also provide some long-awaited answers for members of Garner’s family, who have long maintained that there was plenty of blame and responsibility to go around after Garner’s death.
Only one police officer, Daniel Pantaleo, who took Garner down with a chokehold in front of a storefront, was fired from his job after an administrative hearing in 2019. That was more than five years after Garner died and after Pantaleo still managed to collect overtime as various misconduct and criminal inquiries slowly progressed.
Garner, 43, was stopped by cops on July 17, 2014, for allegedly selling loose, untaxed cigarettes outside a store. As officers tried to arrest him, Pantaleo took him to the ground, his arm around Garner’s neck as they hit the sidewalk, while other cops looked on.
Garner, during the caught-oncamera struggle, said, “I can’t breathe” 11 times, a desperate plea that became a rallying cry for a Black Lives Matter movement that came full circle with the police brutality death in Minneapolis last year of George Floyd, whose last words were the same as Garner’s.
Representatives for Garner’s family said they should be able to hear from the mayor. One of their lawyers, Diane Lucas, argued that de Blasio has repeatedly chosen to publicly take responsibility for the probe, when it suited him.
“In the last seven years, the mayor has made public statements about his personal role in the decision-making process. Literally, from the day after Eric Garner was killed, he made those declarations both to the family of Eric Garner, but also publicly. He said that he is involved in determining what the investigation would be, in making sure that it would be an ‘expeditious’ investigation,” Lucas said in court.
“He did that from immediately after Eric Garner’s death up until, fast forward, when he was running for president in 2019, during the presidential debates, during interviews and on the campaign trial.”
City lawyer Stephen Kitzinger said that neither the mayor nor the police commissioner should have to answer for Garner’s death or the investigation into it.
“There’s nothing to suggest that they did anything wrong,” Kitzinger said. “It appears the desire to have the high-ranking officials testify is not for transparency but for spectacle, and the courts shouldn’t countenance.”
One of the lawyers for Garner’s family members and the advocacy groups that petitioned the courts for the inquiry is the Democratic candidate for Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg. All but certain to win the general election on Nov. 2, Bragg said the inquest will remain his top priority until he starts his new gig on Jan. 1.
“My commitment to this matter, to the clients, extends through the end of the year,” Bragg told the judge. “Should I win the general election in November, I plan to participate up to the end of the year.”
The parties are due back in court on Sept. 13.
“Because it’s a litigation matter, I’m not going to go into any detail. The Law Department should really handle that question,” the mayor said at an unrelated press conference when asked if he’d be willing to testify.
“We’re talking about a very painful moment in our city’s history and for the Garner family. We’ve done a lot to try to change things profoundly since then, and I’m really looking forward to us being able to move forward, learn the powerful lessons and act on them.”